This is the day Ben Kett with Doctor Chokes, starting our day right with the super short Devotional Award class. Hey guys, today's reading is taken from Mark chapter 15 verse 37. Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. Only lately have I fallen back in love with reading.
To be very honest, in recent years, I used to not like it very much. Maybe because I have a lot of reading to do at work. Who knows? I much preferred watching.
Good evening with Netflix and a cup of tea. Perfect. I felt like that was a much easier way for me to switch off after a long day at work and required less focus than reading. Not only that, but you get to see and experience stories completely differently when watched than when read.
That's why every good Friday for the last few years I've watched The Passion of the Christ. I film by Mel Gibson that depicts the last few hours of Jesus' life on earth. It really is fantastic, but it makes for uncomfortable viewing. When I watched it and saw not just a physical turmoil that Christ underwent for us, but the spiritual battle too.
It made Jesus' crucifixion what I had read in the Bible for many years all the more powerful to me. I was filled a fresh with a new wave of thankfulness for the actions of our heavenly Father. The first time I watched it I even had to turn away at parts. It was so severe.
In Isaiah 52 it says that Jesus was beaten to the point of being completely unrecognisable. Wow. Yet under his last few breaths he cried out, Lord forgive them. Jesus died on good Friday so that we might be free and have access to forgiveness, to give forgiveness for our sins.
This day was and still is absolutely pivotal to our Christian lives. It stayed changed the entire world forever. But this day was dark, very, very dark. It was a dark day.
But of course it was the light of the world was killed. What did we expect? Today we remember the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Take 30 seconds now with me to reflect.
Think of his goodness. Think of the gravity of what this day means to you. Take a breath in and a breath out. Pray with me.
Lord, thank you for coming to work and dying as soon as death to give me a way of escape. Help me to find the right words to share this good news with those around me in Jesus' name. Amen.